31–40 of 58 posts
What can I do that is moderately interesting with freedos? I've downloaded it a couple of times, but I never found anything useful to do with it. I'm sure I could play some games, or something. I really want to actually learn it.
It has a package repository which is cool.
But DOS is DOS, it is limited. If you don't think it's cool, I guess you're outside of its scope :).
What can I do that is moderately interesting with freedos? I've downloaded it a couple of times, but I never found anything useful to do with it. I'm sure I could play some games, or something. I really want to actually learn it.
- old dos games
- turbo pascal 7 coding sessions
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a lot of firmware flashing stuff that runs on DOS, because it’s easier to have direct access to hardware without the OS trying to access that hardware simultaneously. The alternative is correctly disabling the device under Windows/Linux/whatever, flashing the firmware, and re-enabling it, which is a process likely to have bugs and potentially result in bricking the device. Modern operating systems are big and…
Even DOS doesn't work for most modern hardware. Can't have direct blueray drive access if there is no way to initialize the SATA controller...
You know, the fact that their tools were originally Linux explains why the tools are so bloated and slow compared to the MS-DOS utilities I still use like EDIT, TREE, and MORE. It also explains why FreeDOS won't install on PCs I have which install and run DR-DOS and MS-DOS just fine.
What can I do that is moderately interesting with freedos? I've downloaded it a couple of times, but I never found anything useful to do with it. I'm sure I could play some games, or something. I really want to actually learn it.
What can I do that is moderately interesting with freedos? I've downloaded it a couple of times, but I never found anything useful to do with it. I'm sure I could play some games, or something. I really want to actually learn it.
Run a DOS OS legally without having to use a Microsoft product. That's one. It has a package repository which is cool. But DOS is DOS, it is limited. If you don't think it's cool, I guess you're outside of its scope :).
How does freedos handle newer hardware? I remember giving up on my super DOS boot disc about a decade+ ago when it wouldn't boot anymore. If memory serves it was around the end of IDE drives, but I could be wrong. Maybe it had to do with EFI.
But to answer the question, FreeDOS like MS-DOS and DR-DOS has drivers in the form of TSRs and DEVICE=blah.sys files. The only drivers it needs itself is for disk and basic video output, which are provided by the BIOS.
Curious. How exactly does one build embedded applications for FreeDOS? What languages/compiles can I use?
What can I do that is moderately interesting with freedos? I've downloaded it a couple of times, but I never found anything useful to do with it. I'm sure I could play some games, or something. I really want to actually learn it.
I remember using FreeDOS for learning assembly through the `debug` command. Looking at the BIOS data was fun for me at the time. I've also tried DOSBox but since it's emulated the BIOS data wasn't "real". I have not yet found an equivalent of the `debug` command for Linux. Ppl told me `gdb` could do the same but I found debug easier to use.
More modern formats (be it PE, ELF, Mach-o, ...) are far more complex, with many different segments, running in a more complex CPU mode, generally dynamically linked, and all the other bell and whistles. So even if you had an identical debug.exe for Linux, it would still be much harder to make sense of.